The present invention relates to a surgical tool capable of being inserted through a patient upon surgical operations for viewing, applying treatments, and so on.
So far there has been a medical instrument widely used in which a surgical tool is inserted through the body cavity of a patient and a distal end of the surgical tool is pulled or towed by means of a wire or the like for viewing organs within the body cavity or applying treatments to them. For operations, a plurality of surgical tools such as an endoscope for viewing purposes, forceps for taking a grip of tissues or an electric scalpel for excising off tissues are often inserted through the body cavity. A plurality of such surgical tools may be likely to interfere with one another in the close body cavity.
JP(A) 2006-341111, JP(A) 2010-075375 and Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2002-503131 disclose a surgical tool including a distal-end joint assembly that is flexible and bendable. If the distal end of the surgical tool is bent, it is then possible to prevent interference to some extent.